The Oakland-Craig Girls beat Fremont Bergan 60-55 last Thursday night in the C2-3 Sub-District Final at Fort Calhoun.
Bergan led 15-11 after one and won the second quarter 15-14 to take a 30-25 lead into the locker room.
Oakland-Craig outscored Bergan 21-10 in the third quarter to go up 46-40 at the end of three.
Bergan put up 15 points in the fourth quarter compared to 14 for Oakland-Craig.
Dacey Nelson totaled 31 points and 8 rebounds while Kennedy Benne added 19 points.
Head Coach Anderson says Nelson was a big reason the Knights were victorious. "Yeah she's definitely one of the leaders of our team out there. She loves to have the ball in her hands, and when she does good things happen for us."
The Knights (14-6) take on Ponca (20-4) in the C2-2 District Final at Wisner-Pilger Saturday evening.
The Indians defeated BRLD 59-58 in the C2-4 Sub-District Final at West Point-Beemer last Thursday night.
Anderson says the two teams are a lot alike. "Oh they're a very, very athletic team. Quite a few seniors on their team, and they're a lot like us as far as they're not a bunch of 6'0 girls by any means, but they play very physical and they get up and down the court, they're going to press you. A lot of full court man. And really try to speed you up, and force you into turnovers."
I don't think there's any doubt that Nelson is the key to this game. She needs to have a big game for Oakland-Craig to win, there's no doubt about it.
Big time players step up in big games, and that statement certainly applies to Nelson.
The Knights could benefit from Benne and Shannon Pille having big games too, and I think at least one of them is going to need to step up and score like they did in Sub-Districts.
As good as Ponca is it might take all three players I mentioned scoring in double digits for Oakland-Craig to win.
This is a district final, and is for all the marbles, and the Knights have to play their best game of the season to come out on top.
Oakland-Craig has played basketball ever since the loss to West Point-Beemer in the first round of the East Husker Conference Tournament on January 27th as the Knights have won five in a row so I'm interested to see if Oakland-Craig can keep the magic going.
I'm sure Oakland-Craig would love to get back to state, and if the Knights win Saturday evening they will have really earned this state tournament berth.
The Knights are looking to get back to state for the second straight season while the Indians are looking to get there for the first time since 2015.
Saturday evening's game is scheduled to start at 6:00.
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